Mr Paul Martin, the prime minister of Canada, is rightly concerned about increasing gun crime in his country, particularly in the city of Toronto, where a 15-year-old girl was shot dead and six others were wounded on a busy street this week.

Toronto does not, as yet, have as serious a problem as Jamaica, a country with a population comparable in size to the Canadian city. Toronto, so far this year, has recorded 78 murders, compared to our more than 1,600.

Most of the murders in Jamaica were committed with guns. There were 52 gun-related murders in Toronto.

In the face of the growing problem, Mr Martin has promised to ban handguns in Canada if his Liberals win next month's general election. We support Mr Martin's plan, even though we appreciate the claims of his critics that such a ban will not, of its own, solve the problem.

As Jamaicans know only too well.

There is another of Mr Martin's initiatives with which we are empathetic and on which we hope he has better luck than the Jamaican authorities in getting action.

The Canadian premier has complained that up to half of the gun crimes in Canada are committed with weapons smuggled across the border from the United States. He does not believe that the Americans are doing enough to stem the problem and has told Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, as much.

He has up to now not had much traction. Neither has Jamaica, who are accustomed to the argument of our friends in the United States that it would be just too difficult, and expensive, to deeply monitor shipments from the US for illegal weapons.

It is a position, as is increasingly the case with the Canadians, we have always found difficult to accept. Indeed, we hear the arguments that the problem in a country like Jamaica - and we suppose Canada - is about youth alienation and gangs. In our case, the lack of economic opportunities is also a factor.

But that notwithstanding, we believe that the United States, particularly in the case of a small, poor state like Jamaica, has not only a moral responsibility but a security interest in paying substantially greater attention to the problem and helping to solve it.

In Trench Town, Arnett Gardens, Olympic Gardens, Jacques Road, Spanish Town and many other inner-city communities across Jamaica, hundreds of young lives are snuffed out each year with guns manufactured in and obtained on the streets of the United States. This represents a wanton waste of human talent that could be beneficial to our country.

Many of these guns are in the hands of gangs which exist for the protection of narcotics for which Jamaica is a trans-shipment point to the United States from South America. US demand for drugs is, in part, Jamaica's pain.

The crisis of criminal violence places great stress on and weakens the Jamaican state, which makes a small, already weak country vulnerable to narco and other terrorists. But the threat does not end with Jamaica.

The United States has substantial economic and other interests here which would be vulnerable to these terrorists.
Jamaica and other Caribbean states, given their proximity to the United States, are potential jump-off points for terrorists wishing to attack the US.

The bottom line is that there are shared interests between Jamaica and the United States. As there are between the US and Canada. Even over what the Americans may see as a mundane issue of gun control.

Hopefully, Mr Martin's echo of Jamaica's position will have greater resonance in Washington.

Executive Class

Gardens with Gravel

Death to the Mullet!